Washington ? President Bush, still taking a crash course in diplomacy, is getting pointers from an unlikely trio: Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Democratic rival Al Gore and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

But as Bush begins a weeklong tour of Asia, there is little sign he is about to modify his blunt-spoken some would say less-than-diplomatic approach.

Putin and Gore both used carefully crafted language last week Putin in press comments in Moscow, and Gore in a speech in New York to caution Bush against U.S. unilateralism in going after Iraq or other hostile regimes.

Thatcher took a different tack, saying in a newspaper essay that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein must go. “How and when, not whether, to remove him are the only important questions,” she wrote.

Clearly there is no shortage of foreign policy advice for Bush as he ponders the next phase in the war on terrorism.

But disagreement persists at home and abroad over whether he should be speaking a little softer when wielding the big stick of U.S. military might.

Diplomatically speaking

Bush’s bluntness could be troublesome as he travels through Japan, China and South Korea, a region where intentions are often indirectly signaled rather than expressly stated.

“Very direct language is not necessarily the language of diplomacy in other countries,” said Antony Blinken, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Confusion remains in foreign capitals over Bush’s branding of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” Blinken said. “People are wondering what it means in practice.”

It is clear to Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser. “I think what the president is doing, and what he did in the State of the Union, is to speak in a kind of plain and clear way about the threat that we all face.”

More respect needed

Just as Bush was being plain and clear, the usually straight-talking Putin was trying nuance.

While the United States has no basis for extending the war to Baghdad, “that does not mean that the international community does not have any problems concerning Iraq,” the Russian president told a news conference.

Separately, Putin told the Wall Street Journal that the United Nations should deal with Iraq and other rogue regimes not the United States alone. But he also praised the U.S.-Russian relationship and said Bush’s State of the Union “was a success for him politically.”

Meanwhile, Gore stepped out of the political shadows to tell a New York foreign policy group that the administration should show more respect for its allies against terrorism. Sometimes, he said, it sends the message: “With others, if we must; by ourselves, if possible.”

Still, the former vice president praised Bush for putting Iraq, Iran and North Korea on notice and for a “very successful opening counterattack” in the war.

Thatcher offered her advice in a New York Times op-ed essay. “The West as a whole needs to strengthen its resolve against rogue regimes and upgrade its defenses. The good news is that America has a president who can offer the leadership necessary to do so,” the former British prime minister said.